Empowering Woman of the Week: Helena Foulkes

Jan 18

When trying to decide what I wanted to theme my blog around I asked myself, “What are you inspired by?”. Although many things inspire me such as a breathtaking view or cheering on the Dawgs, the one thing that constantly moves me is women in the workforce breaking bounds. Thus, I decided to base my blog on that – women who inspire me to excel in my future career, and who show me that the sky is the limit.

The first female I have chosen to write about has been showing up on the news frequently, and that is CVS VP of Health Helena Foulkes. She received both her undergrad and MBA from Harvard and has been with the company for more than 20 years. She has also received numerous professional honors such as being on Fortune’s list of the Most Powerful Women in Business. On top of this, she is also a mother of four.

CVS Truth-In-Beauty Promotion.

Although her background is impressive to say the least, what inspired me to write about Foulkes is her recent marketing campaign she is rolling out at all CVS locations called “Truth-In-Advertising” for beauty products. This campaign will now no longer have digitally altered photographs of women wearing their beauty products and will sport a “beauty mark” for the non-digitally altered photographs. This will effect products such as makeup and skin care items, which have advertisements that are usually photo shopped to alter the models’ skin color, size, or shape.

The reasoning behind this is that CVS is at its core a health company. Unrealistic female body images are proven to cause health issues in females. Foulkes states in her interview with CBS, “80 percent of women feel worse about themselves after looking at beauty ads, and 42 percent of girls in grades one through three want to be thinner”. Beauty products have been known to drastically change their models’ appearance to attract more consumers to purchase their product in hopes that they, too, become that beautiful by using their product. Although this has proven to work, the health issues it is causing within women are detrimental.

Helena Foulkes, CVS Executive VP of Health.

CVS is taking a marketing approach to be authentic and show consumers what they are truly getting, rather than a fabricated, edited image in hopes of having not only the consumer trust the company more, but improving upon the social issue of female body image. Helena Foulkes is changing the game when it comes to marketing for beauty products because she has the consumer in mind, which makes her an empowering woman.